1. Field Of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to doors and side panels for vehicles and, more specifically, to energy absorbing doors and body side panels for vehicles.
2. Description Of the Related Art
It is known to construct doors and body side panels for vehicles such as automotive vehicles. Typically, the door and body side panel construction includes inner and outer panels. Decorative trim panels are usually mounted to the inner panels of the door and body side panels.
It is also known that vehicles may collide with obstacles during operation. As a result, automotive vehicles have provided various structural upgrades and restraint systems to lessen the effects of a collision type impact on an occupant compartment of the vehicle. For example, some automotive vehicles include an air bag to lessen the effects of a frontal collision type impact. As to a side collision type impact, some automotive vehicles may include door intrusion beams, body side structural upgrades, and/or side bolsters of foam or honeycomb construction. While the door intrusion beams and body side structural upgrades provide some advantages in lessening the effects on the occupant compartment from a side collision type impact, they suffer from the disadvantage of being relatively expensive and weighty. A disadvantage of the side bolster mounted on the occupant compartment side of the trim panel is the reduction of the lateral space available to the occupants.